Novak Djokovic repeats as champion in London with a straight-set victory over Rafael Nadal on Monday. Nadal ends his season with a 75-7 record.
Rafael Nadal may have won the war in 2013, but Novak Djokovic won this battle. In fact, Djokovic came out on top in every single one of his post-U.S. Open battles.
The world No. 2 improved to 22-0 during the fall swing and successfully defended his World Tour Finals title by beating Nadal 6-3, 6-4 in one hour and 36 minutes on Monday night. Djokovic, also a recent champion in Beijing, Shanghai, and Paris, fired six aces without double-faulting and he dropped serve only once.
“One thing that made the difference in today’s match was the serve,” Nadal reflected. “I didn’t serve well; he served well. On this kind of court, the first shot is very important and he hit that first shot much better than me.”
The Spaniard recovered from an immediate donation of serve in the second game of the match by breaking his opponent at 1-3 in the first set. Djokovic started to spray backhands all over everywhere, but his gift-giving mode ended in a hurry. The second seed seized another scalp of the Nadal serve by converting break point at the end of a dramatic rally that concluded with a forehand volley winner. Back in front 5-3, Djokovic made no mistake with the set on his racket.
Set two was mostly one-way traffic, starting with a Djokovic break for 2-1. Nadal, who struggled to find the range on his forehand all day long, never could get back on serve. The world No. 1 did well to hold at 3-5, even saving a championship point with a punishing forehand down the line. If the pressure was on in the following game, Djokovic did not show it. After missing one more match point, Djokovic hammered an ace at deuce and clinched victory when Nadal set an inside-out forehand just wide.
“I think I’ve worked on a few things in my game and serve that has helped me win a lot of matches in last two months,” the winner explained. “This is definitely the best possible way that I can finish the season; the official ATP season, not including the Davis Cup final that I have in a few days’ time.”
Nadal still leads the overall head-to-head series 22-17, but Djokovic boasts a 13-7 advantage on hard courts.
“We push each other to the limit; we make each other better,” Djokovic said of the rivalry. “We make each other work harder on our games, especially when we play against each other. It’s always a huge challenge.”
@chloro 2:18pm, I think what Bodo means by the “skin in the game” comment is:
a. Rafa’s monumental year, culminating in securing YE#1 2 matches into the tourny, drained Rafa emotionally and this weighed on his motivation. Novak was the opposite.
b. Novak had more to lose, by losing, than Rafa. Not just in points but in momentum going into 2014. Rafa still has momentum going into 2014 thanks to the Year he had. Now we can also say Novak has momentum going into 2014 thanks to the Fall he had. If Novak had lost, all his good work post USO leading up to WTF would have been consigned to footnotes.
Agreed,
The Rafa and FO obsession continues for Novak:
“Djokovic finishes 2013 with a 72-9 record and seven titles. But still missing is the French Open and a return to No. 1, two big goals for 2014 that he says he can achieve after gaining back some leverage on Nadal who beat him in an epic five sets in Paris.
“I would choose to win both next year,” he said referring to the French and the No. 1 ranking. “That’s only thing that I’m doing. I’m looking ahead. What happened happened, and everything happens for a reason. As I said before, those losses that I had against Nadal in the big matches made me understand what I need to do to become a better and stronger player. That’s all that matters now.
“I won over 20 matches in a row. With this particular confidence, I’m getting into the new season that hopefully can be the one for me where I can challenge Rafa on Roland Garros.”
http://www.tennis-x.com/xblog/2013-11-12/14181.php
#HolyGrail
Novak is making a big mistake. He can only play Rafa in the final and there are plenty of players in between them that could upset the apple cart.
Players are not always on their game, Novak was very lack lustre at Wimbledon against Andy Murray.
We’ve seen this movie before, @nadline: Novak announces his target(s) pre-season (the FO). He proceeds to lose matches he has no business losing while focussed on “the goal”. The goal is in sight and he fluffs his lines…………
Nothing to see here, let’s move on………….
I don’t pay too much attention to what Novak says in interviews, no matter the context or the subject. He knows and we all know that RG 13 was by far his best chance so far to defeat Rafa there. Simply because Rafa was coming back only a dozen or so short weeks from a major injury break, and every tournament he was entering was still a question mark, pure and simple, clay or not, RG or not. Witness to this fact is that shortly after that match his knee acted up plenty (if not already during), so much so that he could not get out of the first round at Wimbie and then took a few weeks’ break to be able to compete again.
So long as the knee is not a factor come RG it is highly unlikely Novak will have the same chance to take Rafa to 5 sets should they meet in the final. And nadline is very right, you can’t count on making it to the final at RG, the toughest tournament in that regard, unless your name is Rafa and your knees are pretty much alright.
If my name was Andy, Juan, Novak, Roger or a few more, I would probably hope and maybe even pray if was inclined to pray, half-ashamed, that Rafa’s knees would cause him not to be in my way for a few months while I was after my most desired trophy/ies.
I like Fed’s attitude towards RG best: as long as Rafa is in the draw, fuggedaboutit. This way, Fed saves himself disappointment and if a window opens up unexpectedly like it did in that fateful year when Rafa lost to Sod, take advantage and thank your lucky stars!
If this was Novak’s attitude as well, I am sure he would have fared better at Wimby 2012 and 2013.
it’s no longer a desire to win RG by beating Rafa…it’s Nole’s obsession…
I’m sure this has come up in many threads (sorry) but,
Why does Rafa struggle so much with his serve?
(I tried to write this before but my comment was deleted..)
@Shireling, wasn’t it you who posted that Rafa’s serve is erratic during the Fall and I surmised that this might be due to mental fatigue? I thought your observation made sense. I myself also did remark that Rafa’s serve had become erratic but I thought you answered my query when you said it was “during the Fall”.
His serve is intelligent, rock solid in some matches (e.g. against Fed, Berdy) and a mess at times (against Nole, Wawa). However, he served very well all season leading up to USO so I am inclined to think mental fatigue has a lot to do with it………..
Maybe his cut finger was hurting.
RT @TennisReporters: “Nadal after loss 2 Djokovic in ATP Finals:’I hope 2 be ready 4 Australia 2 play my best again. Is little more favorable court for me'”
Hey, guys, I see, most of you are in the right mood to put this loss into perspective. I’m a little disappointed, too, that Rafa wasn’t up to one final heroic deed, but for me, he had his cherry on the season cake, when he managed to lock up the year end No 1. And, since Novak kept rolling (congrats to him for this), Rafa had to do it all by himself, nobody helped him out by defeating the Djoker. Kudos.
As it is, this part of the season has been Novak’s best stretch for a while now, and it coincides with Rafa’s worst stretch. Or I should rather say, Rafa’s least favorite stretch. In triathlon it is important to perform at your best in your favorite discipline. But it is equally important to lose as little time as possible in your worst discipline. I think, Rafa performed outstandingly at the tournaments, he loves and favours, but he also performed better than ever in the post US Open season, where he always lets a bit up. Kudos again for this.
2014 is a whole new thing, and, as Boris Becker said in one of his more lucid moments: ‘Rafa is a creature of the sun and the wind’. Unlike in the artificial light of the O2 Arena, there will be both at the AO. Novak’s win in London doesn’t mean at all, that the AO trophy can be shipped to him already. Rafa and other players will have plenty to say about this.
“it’s also not at the end of a very long season”
What do you mean by the above quote, Ricky?
I think ricky was referring to AO 2014 mentioned in the previous comment.
AO is at the start of the season, when Nadal (and everyone else) is close to 100 percent.
Very good article on Rafa and Novak:
http://www.tenniscanada.com/index.php?title=TEBBUTT:-DUEL-OF-THE-ULTIMATE-DUO&pid=5145
“The final on Monday was closer than it appeared. ”
“Robert Paluba, an astute PHD student in mathematics in Paris, made the interesting observation that, despite the loss, Nadal had his best ever career post-US Open stretch, in terms of ATP ranking points – runner-up in Beijing (Djokovic), semi-finalist Shanghai (del Potro), semi-finalist Paris (Ferrer) and runner-up YEC (Djokovic).”
“It was surprising to hear Vadja comment recently that Djokovic didn’t believe he could beat Nadal at the US Open.”
—“an astute PHD student in mathematics in Paris, made the interesting observation that, despite the loss, Nadal had his best ever career post-US Open stretch, in terms of ATP ranking points—
Wow! An astute PHD student in mathematics in Paris discovered the ATP website! 🙂
Ha,ha, I don’t think, you have to be a phd student in math for recognizing, that Rafa had his best stretch ever post US Open…
how did he do in other 2010 tournaments before reaching the WTFs final?
Ricky Dimon@November 12, 2013 at 7:00 pm
2010
Points, total: 1680
WTF – Final – 1000 points
Masters 1000 Shanghai – R16 – 90 points
ATP-500 Tokyo – Win – 500 points
ATP-250 Bangkok – SF – 90 points
2010 (opponents, courts, results)
Points, total: 1680
World Tour Finals; 21.11.2010; Indoor: Hard;
Final——Roger Federer——L 3-6, 6-3, 1-6
Masters 1000 Shanghai; 10.10.2010; Outdoor: Hard;
R16——Jurgen Melzer——L 1-6, 6-3, 3-6
ATP-500 Tokyo; 04.10.2010; Outdoor: Hard;
Win——Gael Monfils ——W 6-1, 7-5
ATP-250 Bangkok; 27.09.2010; Indoor: Hard;
SF——Guillermo Garcia-Lopez——L 6-2, 6-7(3), 3-6
oh HAHAHAHA the infamous GGL match.
my brother was at that match. #epic
It is well known that many mathematicians, ie with PhD and all, are rather poor at arithmetic. But I digress..
I meant to add: luckily all he needed to do as Augusta points out was to find out about the ATP site.
Stop taking the piss, people. The point is Rafa is so important even astute Parisian mathematicians are motivated to run algorithms around his performance……..
Do you think they bother with Rosol win charts?
^^ 🙂
Tiggy says Rafa is co-favourite with Novak for AO 2014:
http://www.tennis.com/pro-game/2013/11/o2-review/49769/#.UoKEv-JRCDc
“As I’ve written a few times lately, the last few years show that a strong fall can lead to a strong start to the following season, so in that sense you might favor Djokovic in early 2014. But outdoor tennis in Australia is different from indoor tennis in London. As long as the roof stays open in Oz, Nadal should be the co-favorite. I look forward to the next chapter in their story together.”
RAFA IS WINNING AO 2014, YOU CAN TAKE THAT TO THE BANK!!
Djokovic is about +140
Nadal is the second favorite, around +200
Odds are just that. On the day things often enough turn differently. A number of times since late 2010 Novak has defied the odds. Even more often since 2007 at least Nadal has.
The odds express just an opinion of people who are playing with their money. Their opinion isn’t more important for me than my own opinion.
well it is not Tignor’s place to say who is favored. Djokovic is favored.
He can say who he thinks is going to win, but saying both are favored suggests that he thinks they are both going to win–which doesn’t make any sense.
@Ricky, agree, what Tignor says, doesn’t make it so.
When he says, both are favored, he probably means, it’s a toss up. As to the value of those early predictions, see, what I wrote below.
I’d be interested to know, if betting odds are a more reliable predictor than expert picks. What journos and fans predict, is never completely impartial but if I want to make money by playing the odds, I have to put all fandom aside. But all predictions put out now aren’t worth a dime since things can change mightily from now to the final day of the AO.
agreed.
Although most “experts” usually pick the favorite, so the findings may not be as interested as they could be.
Tignor has a notoriously bad record. Only for the French Open he normally predicts the correct winner, but so have most experts for the last 8 out of nine years, lol!
Tignor seems to be saying that Djoker and Rafa are co-favorites. What’s wrong with that? Obviously he knows that only one can win the AO. He’s not saying that they both can win. There doesn’t have to be one favorite for a slam, unless it’s RG. 🙂
because he is factually wrong.
if he is incorrectly going to use the term “favorite” to mean “the person i think is going to win,” then he cannot say both.
You want him to draw a line in the sand and declare which one he think is the favorite, even if he has to say, “but it will probably be close”. Or else not use the word favorite and say “at this time I am at a loss to call one the more likely to win”.
DO YOU? 😉
yes
anything other than what he currently has down on paper would be an improvement
littlefoot,
I know nothing about how the betting companies operate, but I’ve been wondering the same. Without having bet or looked into this, here is my guess. I think that some of them put effort into keeping all kinds of stats and using some people smarts to help make good predictions, then look also at what the betting customers seem to think. While other companies, perhaps the majority, keep it simple. They go primarily by what their best reading is as to the odds _as far as the customers go_, in other words how much would a great many of them be willing to gamble for or against a particular outcome, right now? (Or rather, distributions of such, of course). If you have a good pulse on that, that may be enough to be very profitable on average. Any thoughts?
At any rate, when I have looked up odds in those summarizing sites re certain specific matches late in tournaments I found that quite often they are pretty good and then other times not particularly good at all at predicting. So in general terms the posted odds mean something and may be better than the ‘experts’, journalists and fans.. but no more than that.
Right now Novak and Nadal are pretty close to each other that many of their matches are hard to call. Maybe not indoors. Maybe not on clay. But elsewhere. 2013 was different. On clay it was early days for Nadal coming back and he was not in good shape by the time of the MC final, not enough to take on Novak in OK form. To a lesser extent the same was true at the RG semi-final.
chloro, as far as I know, there’s a difference between tips, a betting experts might give out, and the odds. How much you can win, if you bet on the right ‘horse’ simply depends on how many other people have bet on that horse, too. Of course, people’s betting behaviour is influenced by expert tips as well as prior results and inside information about influential facts such as injuries etc. So, I’d think the betting scene is more impartial than fans, since it’s about money. I for one don’t get much worked up about journos’ and other people’s prediction, because they have zilch influence on the actual outcome of the event. A tennis player plays against his opponent and not for or against a prediction.
right. the odds are completely determined by the betting trends. Only the opening odds are determined by the oddsmaker. After that, the market takes over.
At the World Soccer Championship 2010 in South Africa, the German journos had an octopus called Paul, who had a 100 % correct prediction quote for all matches he was consulted for, and that were many. He got 2 jars with snacks, each with a flag representing a country on top. The team of the country, Paul choose, won always, lol! Incredible coincidence. It started out as a joke, but in time people started to believe into Paul’s predictions And after a while many people started to think, that Paul DETERMINED the outcome of the matches, and the internet was full of grilled octopus recipes, which normally came from the country of the predicted loser. So, we have to remind ourselves, that Tignor’s and other people’s or octopussy’s prediction have nothing that infuences the outcome of an event positively or negativelyexcept the welll known ‘Tignor Curse’. Players are probably better off, if Tignor doesn’t favor them 🙂
oh yeah, Pulpo Paul was incredible.
May he R.I.P. He died a natural death, and didn’t end up in a paella pan, though Spain feared for his safety, after he predicted Spain’s win over Germany in the semis. Spain wanted to put him into a witness protection program.
Humano Dimon > Pulpo Paul
@Ricky, lol! I hope, your life span is also longer than Paulie’s. He was about 4 years old, when he passed away. But that’s apparently pretty old for an octopus. Unfortunately no equally talented successor emerged in time for the next championship.
still have plenty of time. World Cup not until next summer.
Octopi are highly intelligent and shouldn’t be eaten anyway. They play, they learn, they think. They are brilliant.
That’s true. The only reason, why there’s no octopus civilization on the ocean floor, is their short life span.
Lay off Tiggy, people! This is what he said, “As long as the roof stays open in Oz, Nadal should be the co-favorite.”
Notice: he said SHOULD BE not IS THE.
Geez. Even with English being a second language for me, I can SEE the difference!
Touchée
RITB, Tignor is one of my favorite tennis writers. Only his predictions are cursed, lol! Exibit A: WTF final 2013. Maybe, he should keep an octopus as a pet 🙂
And some rafafans down under should sabotage that roof…
@littlefoot, poor Tiggy, I am so protective of him. He is arguably one of the best writers in tennis and has a soft spot for Rafa! He gets pilloried by you know who for the latter, and he takes refuge in swinging the pendulum the other way, picking Rafa’s opponent everytime! I think WTF 2013 is the first time he has picked Rafa in a long while, which was quite brave because post USO, he didn’t have Rafa making the quarters of all the tournaments he played!
Well, I hope he does not pick Rafa (same for Mr. Dimon) to win AO 2014…………….
#Antijinxspecial
I hate when they put the roof in Oz…it just does not coincide with the purpose of the tourney…it’s an OUTDOOR tournament with A LOT of SUN and high temperatures, with the main motto: who survives the heat wins!…so the concept simply does not buy the roof job…
We have arrived at that End of Term time when for lack of tennis to distract us, everybody, metaphorically speaking, sharpens their pencils to score points against each other 🙂
We need a few juicy blogs Ricky to fill the void.
^^So true ed251137! A very unpleasant time of year for us tennis fans indeed……….let’s all help by giving Ricky suggestions to at least reduce the boredom.
#Distractions